Read Online Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall - Free Book Online Page B

water, were hundreds upon hundreds of barnacles, some striped, some a faded blue. We could lie on that sloping rock, protected in the lee of a ledge for hours upon hours. Counting the beats between sprays as the waves shlocked into the point, following with our fingers the seagulls wheeling and diving above our heads.
    On this day, the tide was low, the gully easy, and as Harriet spread out our picnic lunch, I unlaced my boots, relishing the feel of the rock under the soles of my feet.
    â€˜Lemon cordial must be the most delicious drink on this earth, don’t you think?’ Harriet said as she lifted the canteen to her lips, and wiped the drips from her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Sweet and sour and wonderful.’
    I’d lain down with my chin resting on my arms so that the rock didn’t chaff against my skin. ‘I dare say there are more delicious drinks, Harriet.’
    She was attempting to engage me in one of my favourite games of the imagination. She did not care for them as much as I, but it warmed me that she would throw out a line for me to catch like this.
    â€˜Consider if you will, the sparkling apple wine of the northern mountains of France,’ I said, playing along.
    â€˜The northern mountains of France, you say? And who taught you that, you ignorant girl! What about the molten chocolate drink of the Amazon, served with gold leaf and the native berries of the rainforest?’
    I flipped over onto my back, feeling the delight in our banter fill my chest until I wanted to shout: I’ve missed you, Harriet! I’ve missed you! But I didn’t, and instead I carried on our game, and we laughed and licked our lips as we described the strange concoctions of our minds.
    We wrapped the remains of our picnic in the cloth and roamed along the shadowed cove where a little shaly beach had formed, made by layer upon layer of bleached shells.
    I wandered back and forth on the little beach, searching for special shells, slowly pacing each step so that I would not miss a buried treasure. Those shells that caught my eye I stooped to examine, stretching out my finger to unearth the piece, checking to see if it was whole. If it pleased me, I would place it on a flat grey rock that sat up in the centre of the little beach. I liked to find a pattern to my collecting: a colour, a curve, a texture, a size.
    While I was engaged in my task, Harriet sat cross-legged on the beach, smoothing a space in the shale in front of her with the side of her hand. She had made a little pile of round white shells, each about the size of a shilling. These were the doors of mollusc shells, a spiral etched on one side of them. She began to make a pattern with them, chatting away to me as she did so; I think we were discussing the wardrobe of Mr Eagleton, who had recently visited to check on the mechanics of the light, when Harriet gave away the deeper contents of her thoughts.
    â€˜Do you suppose it’s true what they say about McPhail?’ she said, never lifting her eyes from the careful shape she was creating.
    â€˜What who says?’ I said, after a pause.
    â€˜I overheard Mother and Father.’ She twirled a white shell in her fingers. ‘They said he fell from grace, that he was engaged to marry, that his heart has been broken?’
    â€˜Well, it makes a good story, doesn’t it?’ I traced back along the ground I hadn’t covered yet. ‘I suspect that, as with any good story, there are elements of truth and the rest has been made up to suit the storyteller.’
    â€˜But why would they make up a story like that?’ Harriet seemed both perplexed and annoyed that the conversation hadn’t been as neat as she anticipated.
    I believed what I was saying, that there was a bitter space between the truth and the story that was told. I knew it in the way my parents sometimes answered my questions in a calm and measured manner when I knew full well they had been fighting